Vigil

Summary:You’d do just about anything to take away her pain and make her whole again. Despite all of this, you know that without her pain, Rose wouldn’t be Rose, so you take comfort in the fact that you can offer her any measure of peace at all. Rosalie's reaction to Bella's transformation.

Notes:

1. Chapter 1

It’s impossible to escape the sound of Bella’s screaming. With the sensitive ears of a vampire, the sound permeates all throughout the house, the yard, and even into the surrounding woods. Carlisle, Esme, and Edward all sit with her, keeping a macabre vigil over Bella’s transformation. Alice and Jasper have went to Denali, unable to bear the agony their new sister is in. You are left wandering through the overly large house, searching for Rosalie and trying to ignore the screams coming from the attic. You are fond of Bella, you would spare her this pain if you could. More importantly, you would spare Rosalie this pain, because she feels Bella’s death more acutely than the rest.

The clang of steel on cement, followed by a muffled string of curses alerts you to Rose’s whereabouts. The detached garage is her own, private retreat from the world, and it suddenly seems silly to you that it was not the first place you looked. You hesitate before stepping out into the misty rain. She might not be in the mood for company. However, you cross the yard anyway, deciding that consequences can be ignored until later. You want, you need, to see your wife right now.

When you enter the garage, all you can see is a pair of shapely, denim clad legs sticking out from an unidentifiable pile of rusted metal in the form of a car. She slides out from the car at the sound of your approach, wiping her hands free of grease on a battered old dish towel Esme contributed to the cause. You recognize the car to be a Camaro, although Rose would be able to tell you the specifics of it, the engine size, the horsepower, every minute detail that defines the vintage machine. It’s fresh from the junkyard, still covered in dirt and dust, and at the moment, so is Rose. You wrap your arms aroung her slim waist, kissing the top of her head, although her blonde hair is decorated with flakes of rust from the undercarriage of her new toy. Her skin is cool under the thin fabric of her t-shirt. To anyone who might happen upon the scene, the two of you look to be the picture of domestic bliss, two beautiful people in love with one another, sharing an interest, a hobby, a moment. But you can feel the tension in her form, see how her hands shake and the steel of the ratchet she’s holding starts to warp from the strength of her grip. You pull away abruptly. We’re going hunting.

The two of you stalk through the woods surrounding the small town of Forks, both acutely aware of the boundary line between your territory and La Push. Sometimes, Rose likes to walk that line, straddling the boundary with impunity, as if daring the dogs to hunt her down. But you need to avoid trouble for today, so you lead her south, until you’re several miles away and you happen upon a small herd of deer grazing in a meadow.

You can’t help but admire her form as Rose takes down a doe. It’s not that satisfying, hunting prey animals rather than predators, but you’ve brought her along less because she needs to feed and more because she needs to be anywhere but near Bella’s screaming. Your beautiful girlfriend, wife, snaps the neck of the doe quickly, sparing any suffering, then neatly slices the tough flesh with her dainty teeth. She’s beautiful like this, she’s beautiful always, of course, but when she hunts, it’s such a strange transportation of everything she is in her public life. Her white t-shirt is spattered with blood, and you stare without realizing at the way her worn out Levis stretch across her rounded ass. Maybe you should be embarrassed to desire her in moments like this, but you are still a man, vampire or not, and Rosalie is still your wife in every way that matters.

She stays crouched over the deer carcass, even though you know instinctively that there can’t possibly be blood left in the poor doe’s body. You can see her clenching her delicate hands into fists, the bloodless veins and tendons standing out in shadow against her so white skin. She is fighting to control herself, fighting not to scream and cry and rail at the injustice of the life she’s been handed, fighting not to rush to the house and do anything, if only it will stop the hideous sounds coming from their typically deserted attic. You don’t regret your existence. You would cheerfully live on the Main Street of Hell if it meant you could spend your life with Rose. But she still mourns the life she left behind; still wishes for babies, picnics, and perhaps a grandchild or two after some years. It hurts you that you can’t give this to her. You’d do just about anything to take away her pain and make her whole again. Despite all of this, you know that without her pain, Rose wouldn’t be Rose, so you take comfort in the fact that you can offer her any measure of peace at all.

She glances up at you, looking almost startled then, as if she’s forgotten that you were there. Her eyes are wild and her face desperate. Before you know what you’re doing, you’re across the field, pushing her against a tree that marks the edge of the clearing. You understand Rose’s moods, you know she needs this, that she needs someone to take away her fear, take away her pain, her frustration, and her anger. You are this person, and right now, taking this horrible look from Rosalie’s beautiful face is your only purpose in life.

Her lips taste of blood, salty and tempting, already congealing slightly from the temperature of Rose’s skin. She freezes for just a second, unsure, then she is kissing you back, her fingers tangling in your curly hair, pulling you closer until you’re thankful that neither of you need to really breathe. Your hands are on her face, her neck, pushing her hair back, holding tight to her slim shoulders as if she is your anchor, not the other way around. Without even realizing what you’re doing, you’ve rucked her shirt up, exposing her black bra and her flat stomach and her delicious tits. Your mouth is on her throat, her collarbones, the line of silky, stretchy fabric that cuts her torso in half, her prominent ribs, her sternum, and finally, her heart. She bites her lip and stares down at you. Her clear golden eyes have gone just slightly glassy.

You kiss her mouth again, hard this time, but always careful not to cut her full lips on your teeth, because the venom still stings when it burns through her system. Your hands skim across her abdomen, unbutton the fly of her vintage 501s, stolen surreptitiously from Edward’s closet some years ago, and then your hands are on her, one squeezing her ass, and the other worming into her expensive French panties. She kisses you, drinking you in, and you’re pleased to note the way she clutches her hands on your broad shoulders, holding on to you like a lifeline. And maybe, to her, you still are. Your long fingers find her center, and its no trouble to push one inside of her, curling your fingertips up in her cool wetness until she cries out your name. Emmett.

Rosalie has been your wife for over sixty years, and you know her body almost as well as you know your own. You could bring her to orgasm in seconds flat, you think, if it were really necessary. But after all these years, her mind is still occasionally an enigma, so you watch her face, her eyes, to make sure that she’s okay. Her body might be flawless, but her psyche still carries the scars of the night of her death, and you would sooner kill yourself than inadvertently hurt her. Some nights, you touch her, and she cannot fight her reaction, she recoils, and you hold her for hours afterwards while she shakes with silent, dry sobs and curses the names of men long dead. But right now, she is in control of her sexuality, if not much else about her, and you find nothing in her eyes except desire and love, quickly taking the place of her rage at her newest sibling. You move your fingers inside of her, and she bites her lip and moans. It’s been a long road, but you’ve taught her that sex is a sharing, not a taking, and she knows you would never use your body as a weapon against her.

You pull away from her, yanking the cotton t-shirt over her head, and she pushes her jeans off her slim hips while you lose your flannel shirt, boots, and khaki shorts. You are naked, and she still is not, and this is a disparity that you think needs to be addressed. Her bra and panties are quickly taken care of, her sandals already kicked off somewhere in the field in anticipation of her kill. Even though you’ve seen her body countless times, the smooth perfection of her form still makes your stomach drop and your erection jump and your mouth go dry of even its venom. Rose, you murmur, suddenly careful with her body, as if she had the same breakable fragility of any other human girl. You lay her in the grass, just yards from the discarded body of her prey, but the dead deer is the last thing on either of your minds at the moment. The ground is squishy from the near constant fall rain that Forks has had for the past week, and you know Rose will be in a fit later from the mud in her hair. However, all the two of you can think about at this moment is the feel of each other’s body.

You are on top of her in an instant, her legs are spread, and with one smooth motion, you’re inside of her. In that moment, there is nothing but Rosalie, and if your heart was still pumping, you’re sure it would skip a beat every time you enter her. You kiss every inch of her face while you move your hips against hers, the purpose of this little excursion not forgotten, and you’re determined that you’ll erase every bad thought from Rose’s conscious, if only for a few minutes. She gasps and moans and whimpers and cries out from the feeling of your body, and in just a few minutes, the two of you are nearing a completion.

Rose comes first, screaming in your ear, digging her nails in your back as your orgasm follows her own. You know she doesn’t mean to, but you can’t help but yell when she sinks her teeth into the fleshy part of your upper arm and her lethal venom surges through you. The burn will die down in a few minutes, you know this from experience, so you hold yourself still despite the pain and silently forgive her momentarily lack of control, as if there were ever any other option.

You are both breathing heavily, despite the lack of need for oxygen. However, in an ironic bit of biochemistry, like a true human, neither of you can come without the oxygen in your blood allowing for the necessary chemical reactions to take place. Your bodies are a brilliant bit of biology and evolution, and if it were possible, you know that Rose would love to run a myriad of tests on you to see why you work the way you do. She might not be dedicated like Carlisle, or even interested in the mechanics of medicine like Edward, but one of her many degrees is in medicine, from Columbia, no less, and she has the unique gift of being able to explain her knowledge in terms that don’t leave you feeling lesser.

As you calm, you become aware of her hands tickling the fine hairs at small of your back. For your part, you stroke her brow and kiss her nose and eyelids and reassure her for probably the twentieth time today that she is the only woman for you. It’s odd that a woman as beautiful as Rose could be so insecure. However, this quirk is just one of many that makes up who she is, so you smile and whisper your own version of sweet nothings into the white shell of her ear. After a few minutes, you pull away from her, regretful of the necessity of it. While you know your body provides a needed distraction for Rosalie, this isn’t the reason you brought her out to the woods, however enjoyable it might be. You help her stand, wipe her backside free of mud with your shirt, and watch for a moment while she dresses herself.

When she is once again Rosalie, and you are once again Emmett, albeit rather damp from the mud and rain, you set with your back against the tree and she settles beside of you. You wrap your arm around her slender shoulders, and she lays her head on the swell of your chest. Even though you are miles away from the house now, the faintest sound of an agonized scream cuts through the sounds of nature, and you feel her stiffen beside of you. You pull her into your lap, holding her tight, and she lets you. If she could still cry, you know tears would be streaming down her perfect cheeks.

As the night falls around the two of you, you keep holding tight to your wife, your angel, comforting her as she mourns the loss of innocence. You’re not sure, you’re not an especially insightful man, but you think that this time, her thoughts are only of Bella. Three days is a long time to avoid their house, but you’ll gladly sit beneath this tree for each and every one of those hours, so long as you’re with Rosalie. The two of you hold your own vigil now.